The Effect of Playing Un-Rendered Effects in Avid

Avid is a great program, but it does have a few quirks when someone
tries to play an un-rendered effect. When dealing with these effects in Avid,
some people will get an error while others will just get a black
screen. Generally, however, just rendering the effect will take care of
all the issues.

Step 1: Understanding Un-Rendered Effects

Un-rendered effects are simply ones that haven't been rendered, which
generally allows the effects to be seen in the sequence. While users
can add effects in Avid without rendering in them, some people have had
issues with this.

Most people will add the effect and either keep playing the clip or
keep editing it. Generally, one of three things can occur when an effect
is added without being rendered. One, the effect will be added, and
users can see it when they run the clip. This is the most desired
effect. That way, users don't have to worry about taking the time to
render the whole clip or sequence to see how the effect will look within
the sequence.

The second possibility is that they will get an exception error. This
is especially true in Avid Media Composer. There is also a chance that
Composer will freeze, which will require the program to be forcibly shut
down. The major issue with this is that the user will lose all the
changes that have been made to the clip.

The third outcome that could arise is that users just get a black
screen when they play the video. They will be able to see the effect if
they simply scroll through the timeline. When, however, they try to play
the whole sequence, that section of the video sequence will just be
black, and/or there will be a red line along the title track of the
sequence during the entire time when the effect should be playing.

Step 2: How to Avoid Issues with Un-Rendered Effects

While the un-rendered effect issues are annoying, there really isn't a
fix for it. The fact that they are un-rendered is the issue. This
issue, however, will not occur in every version of Avid. But, the only
way to find out whether or not your version has this issue is to try it.
Users should just save all their work before they do add an un-rendered
effect. If not, they could lose everything.

If users can add un-rendered effects, and there are no issues, they
should just continue to use un-rendered effects. There version of Avid
can obviously work fine with these types of effects. If the software
crashes, or users get the black screen, then they should probably go
ahead and render all effects that are going to be added to a clip.

Step 3: Rendering Effects

Effects can be rendered either just how they look on the screen or in
the Highest Quality (HQ) Render. The HQ render should only be used
sparingly. It will cause the render time to be extended, and it may not
actually anything to the effect.

If the effect looked great in the timeline, then just render it as it is.